Business Goals
WDI wanted our team to create a WordPress video portal for their Imagineers. The Business Units wants to use the website to embed videos and articles. My team and I were to handle the UX and development for the WordPress theme. I created 2 designs for the BU to review/approve.
This is an internal Video Portal for the Walt Disney Imagineers where they can engage in watching videos and reading articles.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
DATE July 2017- May 2018
DEPARTMENT Enterprise Technology
TEAM Disney Digital Media (DDM)
CLIENT Walt Disney Imagineers
MY ROLE UX Lead
TEAM
PM Michelle Turcios
TECH LEAD Alvaro Gonzalez
MENTOR Matt Wong (UX Manager)
The Challenge
There was a short Timeline...
WDI came to the DDM team for a video portal theme. Several Wordpress themes were evaluated through a long process. It turns out, It wasn’t want the client was looking for. They wanted a custom site. As a result DDM Tech brought in the UX team for additional help on the project. This was already an ongoing project so the budget was already low and the old designs took several months to approve. I was to design 2 homepage options within 1 week.
Initial Wireframe Sketches
During the brainstorming, I researched many video/article sites to find inspiration. I thought about how videos could be presented on the homepage, mapping out a basic flow for the site, and what the requirements were (Log In button, a way to take the user back to the homepage, search bar...) I had many mockups that I drew up.
Homepage Wireframes
After a while, I decided on coming up with two different wireframes that contrasts differently between each other. I decided to take these 2 homepage wireframes into visual design.
Design Review
I created a video site with a more simple design to match their budget so it won't take too long to create during development. The second wireframe, I decided to make the design more chaotic and cinematic. This is more of a bold and fun idea that the client could review so it's not too similar to the first one.
We presented the designs to our client and they decided to go with Design 2, the more simple version for their Video Site. The reason was because it fit their budget. Our next step was to create the rest of the design pages. (Note: This design was also created in Mobile too)
Style Guide
This was my first time creating a style guide for my client and my developers. I enjoyed creating a template of my own to showcase the colors, type choices, and buttons. Becuase of this, the style guide template was used for other team projects
Working with the Client
We stayed in communication with the client to customize to their needs while working with development to reduce complexities. During our time, my manager and I visited the client to revisit categories (filtering) for videos/articles. They told us that their department was going through a re-branding so we collaborated with them to brainstorm some category labels that would match their brand for their site. We then Performed Tree-testing on the video categories to their users.
Result: Low Success rate
Without that test, our users weren't be able to find the videos with the category labels we came up with during the ideation session. We then met up again to re-brainstorm. This time with their Branding/Communications Manager and Tech Product Manager.
Final Designs
Through the design process, we were able to create a successful video site that made the client happy. This project was handed over to my Manager after I left to continue working on the tweaks and then move into User Testing and then later into Gather Content.
Next Steps
The client was happy with the new theme, the designs were then handed off to development (A third party). As a result, the budget for the project was evaluated and the amount increased for more UX and Dev time. I felt that I added UX value during my time being part of this project, I continued to stay on the project till the duration of my time there. I did iterations of QA testing for the site and collaborated with my Tech Lead to improve the designs.